Dear listfriends-- I have mentioned before that a man in our local support
group believes he got PD from exposure as a child to CO. When I showed him
the recent posts about this on the list, he offered to write up his
story--and here it is. Mygon Greene was a founding member of our local PD
support group more than 10 years ago, and though he is now more limited in
activity due to a hip broken in a fall, he is keenly interested in all the
latest news about PD.
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MYRON GREENE'S INVESTIGATION into CARBON MONOXIDE as the CAUSE of HIS PD
Myron was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease Plus in 1976, at age
36. His only brother had been diagnosed with PD + in 1975 at age 30.
They had both noticed something was wrong since their mid-20s. For years,
Myron had assumed the cause was hereditary. After talking with his
brother's widow in a995, he learned that they had concluded the cause was
CO exposure--she didn't say why.
Since Myron couldn't find any ancestors with PD, he began to read
up on environmental toxins. The major source of information was: The
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease
Registry
Division of Toxicology
1600 Clifton Rd. E29
Atlanta, GA 30333 (ph= 1-404-639-0628)
This is an agency of the US government whose mission is to provide the
public, on request, with technical information on toxic substances, at no
charge.
He received reports and research bibliographies on both manganese
and carbon monoxide. After reading about CO, he felt it could be the
culprit in his case, and his brother's. Research as early as 1923 showed a
link between CO and PD, and one paper showed that there could be a delay
between exposure and appearance of symptoms. Since both he and his brother
had such similar experiences with PD, a likely assumption would be they
were exposed simultaneously.
When Myron was in 8th grade, several events took place:
1. the family moved to a new 2-bedroom home which his dad built, and the
brothers shared a bedroom. This room was immediately above where their car
was garaged.
2. one Saturday morning his mom, brother, and he were sitting in the
kitchen, and noticed strong exhaust fumes coming from the basement where
dad was working on their car, with the engine running.
3.Mom and dad would get up at 5:30 AM and on their way to the kitchen would
close the door to the boys' room. after breakfast, dad would leave for
work, often letting the car warm up in the garage. Myron asks," COULD THESE
FUMES HAVE COME UP INTO OUR ROOM AND, WITH THE DOOR CLOSED, BEEN TOXIC
ENOUGH TO POISON US?"
4. one day at school, the nurse tested the urine iof each student--the
results showed Myron had albumin in his urine. When he was examined by
their family doctor, he was told not to put salt on his food, and little
concern was shown--but the episode scared him.
During the summer of 1995, Myron started reading additional
references about environmental toxins at the local public library. He was
stunned to learn, some 40+ years after the event, that CO can cause albumin
in the urine!
Shortly thereafter, he called his 27 year old daughter, whom he had
not seen for several years to tell her he no longer believed his PD had
been inherited, and so she should not worry about being herself stricken by
PD.
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I'm sure Myron will be very interested in any comments or questions about
what he has written, and I'll be happy to relay them to him.
Camilla [log in to unmask]
Oxford,Ohio
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*"In all beginnings, endings lie enfolded,*
* implicit and invisible as roots."...CHF *
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